RIBA South will be hosting a webinar on Wednesday 12th February 2025 (1:00pm - 2:00pm)

Webinar info:

Join us for our February talk with guest speaker Edwin Trout BA, Manager of Information Services from The Concrete Society, as he discusses Portland Cement From Patent to Standard: Accommodating Change in Britain’s Use of building materials, 1824-1934.

A simple glance at the buildings characteristic of either end of the period under review – 1824 to 1934 – is more than sufficient to indicate great change. The humble country cottage and elegant Regency town house lining a London square are a world away from the car showroom and aircraft hangar, or the skyscraper and Art Deco cinema that typify the early 1930s. It is clear that in building, as in so much of European material culture, there has been a huge technological and cultural shift. What became possible in structural design and construction stemmed from the introduction of new building materials – not just their invention, but their acceptance and adoption by the construction industry and the society it serves: a change in the ‘culture of building’.

Building practice at the start of our period was traditional – vernacular, rooted in local materials and methods. But nineteenth century Britain was industrialising rapidly, and a greatly increased output of manufactured bricks and quarried stone was needed to meet the needs of an ever-growing population, through distribution firstly by canal and later the railway. And in an urban explosion of new towns and cities, an eclectic and derivative approach to architecture led to a ‘battle of styles’ between the proponents of various historical revivals in an apparent clash with the use of emerging modern materials such as iron and glass. Just look at the juxtaposition of London’s St Pancras railway station and the mock gothic hotel next door! Our interest here is in the case of a third material, Portland cement – first developed in the UK – its early use in concrete, and later extension into reinforced concrete under the influence of foreign example.

The chronological outline is well recorded, Edwin will share landmarks’ in the narrative that suggest how and to what extent the introduction of Portland cement changed British building practice.